wicked practice, or are in the way of it, will confider, and think upon what I have said against it; and for your own fakes, and for the fake of others, leave off a practice which can do you no good, and will moft undoubtedly, if you repent not, nor leave it off, in the end lead you to ruin.

SERMON X.

LUKE, XV. 10.

THERE IS JOY IN THE PRESENCE OF THE

ANGELS OF GOD OVER ONE SINNER THAT

REPENTETH.

IN the parable from which this verfe is taken, our Saviour intended to fhew the Jews that the Gentiles (reprefented by the prodigal fon) should be taken, on their repentance, into God's favour equally with themselves.

But though this was the chief intention of the parable, yet, like many of our Saviour's parables, it had two views; and the former part, at leaft, is capable of a much more general interpretation. In this light I propofe to confider it, and shall point out the feveral pieces of inftruction that arife from it.

In the first place, we observe the constant readinefs we all fhew to leave our father's house.By our father's houfe, is meant that kind protection which good men always receive from God. And we argue and act in this case most commonly as the prodigal did. The fober difcipline of our father's houfe is too fevere a bondage-we have paffions and appetites which must be indulged-let us make an acquaintance with the world-it is time now to enjoy a little of life: these are the common delufions that carry us all, more or less, into a far country—into the paths of pleasure and indulgence. The father, no doubt, remonftrated to the prodigal, as God does to us in the gospel, and fet before him the kind intention of all the restraints that were put upon him; and probably, with a prophetic figh, forewarned him, that fooner or later he fhould repent his rashness. All being ineffectual, the f ther knowing there are fome people who can learn the leffons of wifdom only from experience, at length gave way; and the youth, we read, gathering all together, with a plentiful fupply of folly and self-sufficiency, took his journey into a far country and the farther from home the better: the greater diflance he went from his father's houfe,

houfe, no doubt, he thought himself the more at liberty, and the nearer happiness.

Let us follow him in this fearch after happinefs. Every restraint was now removed; the world was all before him, and he entered it. with that fame unthinking fpirit with which he had left the kind protection of a father's house. Wherever the tabret and harp refounded, whereever the voice of joy and mirth was heard, there was he in queft of pleasure, furrounded by the gay, the joyous, and the profligate. His paffions were his conductors; and folly and extravagance went hand in hand with him, in all his motions.

It required no fpirit of prophecy to foresee the end. The next verfe recites it: He wasted all his fubftance in riotous living. And it had been marvellous had it been otherwife; for when our paffions fairly take the lead, they feldom ftop. till they are ftopped by the impoffibility of proceeding.

It was not, however, our Saviour's intention to warn us against riot and extravagance, as the natural fources of poverty and distress-this is a worldly leffon-all the wife and prudent men of the world have this leffon by rote. Our bleffed

Saviour's

Saviour's meaning was fpiritual: he meant to teach us, that when we once leave our father's houfe-that is, when we once, in earnest, forfake the paths of religion, there is no faying where we may ftop. We generally proceed headlong on. Our vicious habits get strongerour paffions become more ungovernable; and there is feldom a reformation, unless God should please, in his goodness, to awaken us by calamity.

This was God's method of dealing with the unhappy prodigal. After he had spent all, the text tells us, there arofe a mighty famine in that Land, and he began to be in want: and he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country, and he fent him into his fields to feed fwine; and he would fain have filled his belly with the husks which the fwine did eat; and no man gave unto him.-Here was a falling-off indeed! The gay, the joyous youth, who purfued pleasure in every fhape, and counted days only as they diverfified his pleasures, is now in want of the common. neceffaries of nature; and he who thought the kind reftraints of his father a burden, is now forced to fubmit to the greateft ignominy and diftrefs. And thus it will ever happen to us,